Bad ideas?

[Charles T. Forests]

What bad ideas have you had to compromise on when you are writing to make it work?
I think I might end up changing the premises i started with and do a traggic compromise and either make a sad decision to dumb the telling of my story by instead of a link seal by a kiss just make them linked by wearing it so they don't have to meet or remove the link and make it a single pov just making it a more political novel. Than a tragic romance.

 

[pmmg]

As Bob Ross would say, no mistakes, just happy accidents.

I dont think there are bad ideas, as much as, not all ideas can make it into the story.

Why would the story be dumbed down for having a tragic compromise?

 

[A. E. Lowan]

There are no bad ideas. Only bad executions. And the answer is, we call those "darlings." They're the little, special bits and pieces, the fuzzy feels scenes, basically anything that ends up on a Favorites List but doesn't serve the needs of the plot or the story itself.

We kill these when we find them, because they weigh down and slow down the story.

As for our history of ideas and change, one of our MMC's in our Urban Fantasy series started life as a faerie incubus. Kept the faerie, lost the incubus. Now we have a faerie knight with a potty mouth.

In our last book, put a Brian and a Bran in the same scene together, did not notice until I started drafting it out and about 15 seconds in... splat. New name for Bran, now Colm, and we're off!

 

[Karlin]

"Bad Ideas" in general are fantastic. You won't have "Good Ideas" unless you have many bad ones.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Jup, no such thing as a bad idea.

It's all down to the execution of said idea. The most amazing idea will not save a badly written book, and a terrible idea done will can create a bestseller.

One thing to note though is that ideas change over the writing of a story. A story can start with a single idea and grow from there. At some point however you may find that the story has outgrown the original idea and has become something else. There is nothing wrong with that. The main thing to do in such a case is just accept it and let go of the original idea. Be true to the story and just write it without the original idea.

So far, I've never had a story stick to the original idea 100%. It always changes in the writing. Sometimes more, sometimes less. But there is always change.

As an added bonus, the original idea doesn't disappear, and you can just try writing it again. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[Rexenm]

If there is an immature decision, I think that wrecks the story, in the flamboyance. I think you have to throw a curve ball, not everything that happens to you, does in a story.

 

[Dylan]

What bad ideas have you had to compromise on when you are writing to make it work?
I think I might end up changing the premises i started with and do a traggic compromise and either make a sad decision to dumb the telling of my story by instead of a link seal by a kiss just make them linked by wearing it so they don't have to meet or remove the link and make it a single pov just making it a more political novel. Than a tragic romance.

Ah, the classic writer’s dilemma, stick to the cool, complicated idea or make the story actually function. Tragic compromises hurt, but hey, at least you’re not stuck writing a 10-book lore dump about a magic kiss seal. If turning it into a political novel makes it stronger, go for it. Or just embrace the chaos and keep the kiss, who doesn’t love a little dramatic, fate-binding smooch?

 

[Mad Swede]

There's no such thing as a bad idea when writing, only an idea which doesn't fit what you are writing. Anything you write in a story must serve to develop the story in some way. Usually that means something which develops the plot or a character, although it can also be something which develops the setting as a way of providing some extra depth.

What you need to be careful of are ideas which slow the pace without adding significantly to the story. These are ideas you drop from the story, and knowing when you've got an idea like that is mostly a matter of experience.

I quite often get ideas when I'm writing which don't fit what I'm writing. I save those ideas as text snippets in my random text file for later use. Often these snippets are background or tangential to the main story and character arcs, but are in themselves interesting enough to use later as the basis for a short story or (in one case) a complete novel.

 

[Charles T. Forests]

Jup, no such thing as a bad idea.

It's all down to the execution of said idea. The most amazing idea will not save a badly written book, and a terrible idea done will can create a bestseller.

One thing to note though is that ideas change over the writing of a story. A story can start with a single idea and grow from there. At some point however you may find that the story has outgrown the original idea and has become something else. There is nothing wrong with that. The main thing to do in such a case is just accept it and let go of the original idea. Be true to the story and just write it without the original idea.

So far, I've never had a story stick to the original idea 100%. It always changes in the writing. Sometimes more, sometimes less. But there is always change.

As an added bonus, the original idea doesn't disappear, and you can just try writing it again. Nothing wrong with that.

i have so many ideas i think there might be alot of bad ideas, well i mean for this story they can be used else were or morphed to something different but this time i just dont have the skill to acheive the goal i was after that made it bad. so im rethinking of using older tried and true ideas

 

[Fidel]

There's no such thing as a bad idea when writing, only an idea which doesn't fit what you are writing. Anything you write in a story must serve to develop the story in some way. Usually that means something which develops the plot or a character, although it can also be something which develops the setting as a way of providing some extra depth.

What you need to be careful of are ideas which slow the pace without adding significantly to the story. These are ideas you drop from the story, and knowing when you've got an idea like that is mostly a matter of experience.

I quite often get ideas when I'm writing which don't fit what I'm writing. I save those ideas as text snippets in my random text file for later use. Often these snippets are background or tangential to the main story and character arcs, but are in themselves interesting enough to use later as the basis for a short story or (in one case) a complete novel.

If an idea doesn’t move the story forward, cut it. No one cares about your clever tangents if they drag the pace to a crawl. Save those scraps for something else, but don’t let them clutter what you’re working on now. Be ruthless, your story will thank you.

 

[rerep33098700]

What bad ideas have you had to compromise on when you are writing to make it work?
I think I might end up changing the premises i started with and do a traggic compromise and either make a sad decision to dumb the telling of my story by instead of a link seal by a kiss just make them linked by wearing it so they don't have to meet or remove the link and make it a single pov just making it a more political novel. Than a tragic romance.

Some of us don't recall our bad story write ups. Each story is written with it own flair. Don't see it as a bad story. I don't have bad ones to tell.

 

[dollyt8]

The main idea I had to compromise on was killing one of my characters that ended up being a favorite for my main beta reader. She informed me that if he died she wouldn't care to pick the book up again, and I believed her I'm kind of glad I changed it though, because he's my favorite character now too.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Okay, sometimes there are bad ideas, but they are few and far between and listening to people who are smarter than you usually helps. Mine was sitting at the keyboard at the end of Faerie Rising with a D20 in my hand and a number rolled that said, "Kill her." From across the room my wife said, sternly, "No." And she was right. That character is a fan favorite and pops up all the time.

Also, make sure to marry someone who is smarter than you. That is never a bad idea.